Government health expenditure in India

In their paper about progress towards universal health coverage in Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China, South Africa (BRICS),1 Rao et al. report that in India in 2011, of total government expenditure, about 8% was expended on health. This estimate was from the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) global health observatory data respository,2 which is based on national health accounts. For India, data on the national health accounts were last collected in 2004–2005. More recent data are usually based on estimates obtained through national technical contacts or from publiclyavailable documents, which are then harmonized with the national health accounts framework. Missing values are estimated using various accounting techniques depending on the national data available.3 However, according to the Indian Government’s budget and expenditure data for the fiscal year 2012–2013 (Table 1),4–7 the government spent about 1 104 543 million rupees on health (central and states combined). This is about 3.68% of the total government expenditure of 30 037 588 million rupees and not 8% as quoted in the article.1 ■